A study of Maryland-based Novavax’s COVID-19 vaccine shows the two-dose offering is 90% effective, clearing the way for it to potentially be approved by late summer, early fall.
Tulane School of Medicine Professor of Epidemiology Dr. Susan Hassig said it is possible this vaccine won’t be available to Americans but instead shipped out to the rest of the world through the COVAX program.
“It would be incredibly value in having another product and more production in particular because their estimates of production were really quite high, hundreds of millions of doses,” said Hassig who added there’s already a glut of vaccines available for Americans from Pfizer, Moderna, and Johnson and Johnson, making this offering potentially superfluous.
Hassig said this vaccine could be particularly useful in developing nations that need to get vaccinated in order to prevent even more dangerous variants from mutating.
“It is attractive in some respects because it does not have the more complicated storage requirements that Pfizer and Moderna do,” said Hassig.
In trials the vaccine was reported to be 100% percent in preventing moderate to severe COVID-19 and appears to have fewer side effects than those from Moderna, Pfizer, and Johnson and Johnson.
Given the release schedule of past vaccines, it is likely Novavax won’t get FDA emergency use authorization until at least late August.
Comments